Upstate New York’s underground is about to be doused in fake blood, breakdowns, and Southern-fried hip hop. Endless Fires Fest, the multi-day summer bash landing at Sharkeys Event Center in Syracuse, NY on August 15 and 16, 2026, just added a headliner that turns the whole thing into a full-blown spectacle: GWAR. And because one costumed chaos machine apparently isn’t enough, their satirical siblings in blue, X-Cops, are also joining the bill.
For anyone who has somehow missed the last four decades of interdimensional carnage, GWAR is the Scumdogs of the Universe themselves — the Richmond, Virginia-birthed shock rock institution that has been dismembering celebrities, world leaders and unlucky front-row fans on stage since the mid-1980s. Their arrival on the Endless Fires lineup instantly turns this festival into a bucket-list weekend for anyone with a taste for thrash, punk, metal, and theatrical mayhem.
X-Cops, GWAR’s long-running side project featuring a squad of corrupt, hardcore-punk-playing officers, add another layer of tongue-in-cheek insanity. If you have never seen them live, imagine a Black Flag record being interrogated under a bare lightbulb. It rules…